From: owner-loud-fans-digest@smoe.org (loud-fans-digest) To: loud-fans-digest@smoe.org Subject: loud-fans-digest V2 #43 Reply-To: loud-fans@smoe.org Sender: owner-loud-fans-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-loud-fans-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk loud-fans-digest Tuesday, January 29 2002 Volume 02 : Number 043 Today's Subjects: ----------------- [loud-fans] 2001 list [Jbr21122@aol.com] Re: [loud-fans] Halstead and Merritt, or, Notes toward a syntactical deconstruction of inflated authorial ego ["Dennis M] [loud-fans] poll finalism [Aaron Mandel ] [loud-fans] yow! [dmw ] Re: [loud-fans] yow! ["glenn mcdonald" ] [loud-fans] Why do people hate James Taylor so much? [Dan Sallitt ] Re: [loud-fans] Why do people hate James Taylor so much? [AWeiss4338@aol.] [loud-fans] Jerkin' the tears ["Chris Murtland" ] Re: [loud-fans] Why do people hate James Taylor so much? ["Pete O." Subject: Re: [loud-fans] Halstead and Merritt, or, Notes toward a syntactical deconstruction of inflated authorial ego Me, then Jeff: > But in lesser hands ... this is a formula for disaster Which, of course, isn't Jim Webb's fault: that his followers were unable to keep to the trail he blazed says nothing about that trail, or where it led Webb. <><><><><><><><> Well, somebody inspired them. But I suppose that's like blaming Dylan for James Taylor. - --D ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2002 11:11:57 -0500 (EST) From: Aaron Mandel Subject: [loud-fans] poll finalism The 2001 poll will be closing down this Friday. Vote now! http://www.pastemob.org/lf01/ As always, if you have any changes or corrections to a ballot you've already submitted, just let me know. Also, if the person who voted about two weeks ago for Old 97s, Whiskeytown and Gillian Welch without giving their name could step forward, I'd appreciate it. a ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2002 11:20:57 -0500 (EST) From: dmw Subject: [loud-fans] yow! somebody -- i think glenn? mentioned on irc the other night the ep "makes out" by lovelight shines (one of the band's formed when jejune splintered in 2000) as sounding like "blue oyster cult plays power pop" which was enough, given the pedigree, for me to order it right then. and i hear a good bit of boc -- late 70's -- okay, but what i *really* hear is a boatload of mott the hoople/bowie/mick ronson and cheap trick. yummy yummy yummy. did i say yummy? yummy. - -- d. - ------------------------------------------------- Mayo-Wells Media Workshop dmw@ http://www.mwmw.com mwmw.com Web Development * Multimedia Consulting * Hosting ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2002 11:51:47 -0500 From: "glenn mcdonald" Subject: Re: [loud-fans] yow! > i think glenn? mentioned on irc the other night the ep "makes > out" by lovelight shines ... as sounding like "blue oyster cult > plays power pop" ... what i *really* hear is a boatload of mott > the hoople/bowie/mick ronson and cheap trick. Yes, that was me. When I actually got around to inspecting the EP for reviewing purposes, last week, I didn't hear quite as much BOC as had been my original impression, but I ended up tossing in T Rex, Stones, ELO and Queen comparisons, which is probably my equivalent of "hoople/bowie/ronson/cheap trick". ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2002 12:26:37 -0500 From: Dan Sallitt Subject: [loud-fans] Why do people hate James Taylor so much? > Well, somebody inspired them. But I suppose that's like blaming Dylan for James > Taylor. I've always wondered: why do people hate James Taylor so much? He is always cited as the archetypal over-sensitive, over-introspective wimp. But, really, he's not all that focused on his own feelings - way less than Joni Mitchell, for instance. He's had a self-deprecating sense of humor from the beginning; whatever introspection he gives us doesn't seem self-important. He's a smart guy whose lyrics are rarely hippie-damaged; I guess you could attack him for affecting a country-ish, folksy persona, although I don't find that too heavy-handed. Eventually he moved toward his only remaining audience and became more easy-listening, but he continued to do good work through most of his career. I know that Lester Bangs made a point of turning him into a joke, but I think that Lester Bangs' reputation needs to come down a bit, and James Taylor's needs to go up. - Dan ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2002 09:19:11 -0800 From: "Brandon J. Carder" Subject: Re: [loud-fans] Why do people hate James Taylor so much? James Taylor is AOK in my book, if only for Two Lane Blacktop. - ----- Original Message ----- From: Dan Sallitt To: loud-fans Sent: Tuesday, January 29, 2002 9:26 AM Subject: [loud-fans] Why do people hate James Taylor so much? > > Well, somebody inspired them. But I suppose that's like blaming Dylan for James > > Taylor. > > I've always wondered: why do people hate James Taylor so much? > > He is always cited as the archetypal over-sensitive, over-introspective > wimp. But, really, he's not all that focused on his own feelings - way > less than Joni Mitchell, for instance. He's had a self-deprecating > sense of humor from the beginning; whatever introspection he gives us > doesn't seem self-important. He's a smart guy whose lyrics are rarely > hippie-damaged; I guess you could attack him for affecting a > country-ish, folksy persona, although I don't find that too > heavy-handed. Eventually he moved toward his only remaining audience > and became more easy-listening, but he continued to do good work through > most of his career. > > I know that Lester Bangs made a point of turning him into a joke, but I > think that Lester Bangs' reputation needs to come down a bit, and James > Taylor's needs to go up. - Dan ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2002 09:30:34 -0800 (PST) From: "Joseph M. Mallon" Subject: Re: [loud-fans] Why do people hate James Taylor so much? On Tue, 29 Jan 2002, Dan Sallitt wrote: > I know that Lester Bangs made a point of turning him into a joke, but I > think that Lester Bangs' reputation needs to come down a bit, and James > Taylor's needs to go up. - Dan James' first GREATEST HITS album, a dorm-room staple when I was in college in the mid-80's - makes great background music for working: pleasant and melodic enough to be hummable without causing actual interference with thinking. J. Mallon ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2002 09:42:19 -0800 From: "Andrew Hamlin" Subject: Re: [loud-fans] Why do people hate James Taylor so much? >I know that Lester Bangs made a point of turning him into a joke, but I >think that Lester Bangs' reputation needs to come down a bit, and James >Taylor's needs to go up. - Dan While I would never propose bringing down Lester Bangs' reputation, I do feel obliged to mention that, having written "James Taylor Marked For Death," Mr. Bangs turned right around to pen a begrudgingly affectionate review of ONE MAN DOG, which begins, "Today I am a pud," and continues "...James Taylor's a real >punk<, when ya get right down to it. He never had any shame in the first place; he just sits around and gets fucked up all the time, just like most of us, and I betcha when he's not being a Sensitive Genius he's a getdown dude who don't give a shit about nothin'." And oh yes, I encourage everyone to watch TWO-LANE BLACKTOP! The Anchor Bay DVD is going out of print, so snap that bad boy up while you can or risk another CYPRESS/AFOOT debacle. Smile a little smile for me, Rosemarie? Andy I was going to start this letter with "you're stupid," but I decided to take a more subtle approach. In a a review of soundgarden's "down on the upside," a wonderful and timeless album might I add, you stated that the lyrics in "ty cobb" read, "paul did it, fuck you all," and then referred it to paul's involvement in lennon's death. I hope you would have done a little research before making this very bold statement. The lyrics read, "hardheaded, fuck you all." HARDHEADED! Research it and please reply. sincerely, dear reader - --Doorkeykid4@aol.com with regards to http://www.sonicnet.com/reviews/archive/arch_rev.jhtml?id=503277 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2002 08:31:15 -1000 From: "R. Kevin Doyle" Subject: [loud-fans] ...and on the war against drugs front (no Scott content) http://www.plastic.com/article.pl?sid=02/01/28/1629243&mode=thread Worth a read... ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2002 13:43:45 -0500 From: Michael Bowen Subject: Re: [loud-fans] Why do people hate James Taylor so much? At 12:26 PM 1/29/2002 -0500, Dan Sallitt wrote: >I've always wondered: why do people hate James Taylor so much? Because he had more money, women, and drugs than Lester Bangs. MB ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2002 10:51:40 -0800 From: "ana luisa morales" Subject: Re: [loud-fans] Why do people hate James Taylor so much? At 12:26 PM 1/29/2002 -0500, Dan Sallitt wrote: >I've always wondered: why do people hate James Taylor so >much? yes, when people instead shd be reserving their hatred for steve miller.... even miles davis cdn't stand him. ab-ra, ab-ra ca-dabra, - --ana *"no symmetry"**albany california u.s.a.* ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2002 14:10:55 -0500 From: "Aaron Milenski" Subject: Re: [loud-fans] Why do people hate James Taylor so much? >yes, when people instead >shd be reserving their hatred for >steve miller.... Hey! SAILOR is a great album! I know why people hate James Taylor so much. It's because their girlfriends like him better than they like them. Or at least in the 70s and 80s that was the case. I think SWEET BABY JAMES has aged really well--still one of the best singer/songwriter albums I know, and I know a lot of them. _________________________________________________________________ MSN Photos is the easiest way to share and print your photos: http://photos.msn.com/support/worldwide.aspx ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2002 09:11:16 -1000 From: "R. Kevin Doyle" Subject: RE: [loud-fans] Why do people hate James Taylor so much? Dan Sallitt asks: >I've always wondered: why do people hate James Taylor so much? I can't speak for all people, but I will share my experience. This story the starts the way virtually every other story starts: Back in the 80's, I was program director at my college radio station. Our station was one where we could block program, but we couldn't actually dictate what specific songs people played. In other words, I could schedule somebody to be part of a "rock" show, but I couldn't dictate specifically what they played. Now, there were certain DJs who refused to play *any* new music. These were not the Led Zepplin fans, or the Grateful Dead fans, or even the 60's music fans. All of those groups would play a couple of new songs by new artists during their shows. But the James Taylor fans, well, we couldn't find anything recorded since "Sweet Baby James" that they wouldn't even deign to sneeze at, much less play. Whenever we would have a general meeting of the entire staff, I would rail about how we needed to play more than just "Sweet Judy Blue Eyes (granted, by CSN) and James Taylor's Greatest Hits. Even though I realize now that I have nothing against his music (which is patently inoffensive), the very mention of his name makes me angry. Ergo, I don't hate James for James, I hate James because every minute of air time he had was a minute of air time that didn't go to some then-new music. I have the same feeling whenever I hear "House on Pooh Corner" by Loggins and Messina. GAH! I want to throw up, and I don't even particularly dislike the song. I'm getting worked up right now - let it go. Let it go. R. Kevin Doyle Honolulu, HI ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2002 14:19:21 -0500 From: "Aaron Milenski" Subject: RE: [loud-fans] Why do people hate James Taylor so much? >I have the same feeling whenever I hear "House on Pooh Corner" by Loggins >and Messina. GAH! I want to throw up, and I don't even particularly >dislike the song. Go home and make yourself feel better by playing Jefferson Airplane's "House at Pooneil Corner." Most intense psychedelic song ever. Er, maybe it will make you feel worse. By the way, does anyone know the name of the novel that discusses Smith students sitting in their room and crying to James Taylor records? _________________________________________________________________ Join the worlds largest e-mail service with MSN Hotmail. http://www.hotmail.com ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2002 14:21:58 -0500 (EST) From: dmw Subject: [loud-fans] it's miller time! On Tue, 29 Jan 2002, ana luisa morales wrote: > At 12:26 PM 1/29/2002 -0500, Dan Sallitt wrote: > > >I've always wondered: why do people hate James Taylor so >much? > > yes, when people instead > shd be reserving their hatred for > steve miller.... mostly pretty dreadful, but i think some sort of exemption needs to be granted for the mid70s records, esp. "jungle love," and, yeah, "jet airliner," (which was not written by miller, though it sure sounds like it could've been. > ab-ra, ab-ra ca-dabra, no excuses. my studio bought a piece of gear that was used by steve miller on one of his very worst records (_italian x-rays_) but i need to get it fixed, since it seems to have been damaged in shipping. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2002 14:25:31 EST From: AWeiss4338@aol.com Subject: Re: [loud-fans] Why do people hate James Taylor so much? In a message dated 1/29/02 12:29:06 PM Eastern Standard Time, brandon@cypresshouse.com writes: > James Taylor is AOK in my book, if only for Two Lane Blacktop. > > Me too. Mexico is a great song, Sweet Baby James, Walking Man. He was cool, still is cool. Andrea ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2002 14:35:26 -0500 From: "Chris Murtland" Subject: [loud-fans] Jerkin' the tears I can live with James Taylor in the universe and don't mind randomly hearing one of his tunes now and again, although I don't initiate such a procedure. Of course, John Denver songs made me cry when I was seven, so obviously I was doomed from the get-go. Speaking of crying, how about any songs that bring tears to the eyes? For me, it's "Cat's In The Cradle." I shouldn't admit this in public, but even my friends saying the words can do the trick (and they do so just to torture me). Cry-ay-ay-ing, Sad Little Murt ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2002 11:38:11 -0800 (PST) From: "Pete O." Subject: Re: [loud-fans] Why do people hate James Taylor so much? - --- Aaron Milenski wrote: > I think SWEET BABY JAMES has aged really well--still one of the best > singer/songwriter albums I know, and I know a lot of them. > ... and I always liked the story about the last song on the album. JT turned 10 songs into the record company. They liked what they heard but insisted it was too short. If he wanted to collect his full advance on the album, he had to come up with one more song. Hence the title of track #11, "Suite For 20 G". - - Great stuff seeking new owners in Yahoo! Auctions! http://auctions.yahoo.com ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2002 14:19:37 -0600 From: "Dennis McGreevy" Subject: Re: [loud-fans] Why do people hate James Taylor so much? Dan Sallitt asks: I've always wondered: why do people hate James Taylor so much? <><><><><><> I don't hate him. I'll definitely give him credit for "Fire and Rain", which I consider an amazing song. But I do rank him right up there with the early Eagles in necessitating punk by virtue of his terminal laid back -ness. And "Steamroller" ain't got nothing on Jackyl's "I'm a Lumberjack" as far as awful, completely missing the point white guy blues goes. - --D ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2002 14:22:06 -0600 From: "Dennis McGreevy" Subject: Re: [loud-fans] Halstead and Merritt, or, Notes toward a syntactical deconstruction of inflated authorial ego Jeff: The only real question about "MacArthur Park" is: presumably, the cake in the rain is literal - a wedding cake, a rainstorm - and we're to assume she left him standing at the altar. But who the hell would be foolish enough to even *think* of marrying such a jerk? I think the whole scenario unfolds in his head, as he's (again) imagining the high drama of being abandoned at the altar, being a lifelong martyr to this maimed and crippled love, etc. etc. etc. <><><><><><><> Left at the altar? That's not what I get at all. My read is that he's looking at the park, and done a few too many of his favorite recreational psychedelics, and his view of the landscape is literally melting as he sees it, and he leaps from there to the cake image because that's what he then thinks he's looking at. Remember that the cake is *green*. Being hopelessly self absorbed and prone to drama, he invests it with an emotional charge which casts him as a tragic figure. Being high as a kite, he imagines an eternity of this ennobling pain, which, sadly, he must, alas, endure. But all the drama is hollow to the core; it's not only about something that doesn't matter, it's about something that doesn't even exist as it's being perceived. I think the Wichita Lineman is tapping my phone, - --Dennis ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2002 15:20:22 EST From: DOUDIE@aol.com Subject: [loud-fans] Year's best article I thought this was worth the read, and would illicit some interesting discussion... Steve Matrick - ----------------------------------------------- The deafening buzz Where have all the critics gone? BY DAVID PEISNER The results are in. Combing through the country's major music magazines, it's clear that the best albums of 2001 were made by Bob Dylan, Bjork, Radiohead, Alicia Keys, Macy Gray, Ryan Adams, System of A Down, Jay- Z and the Strokes. Those are the artists who keep popping up on all the Best of 2001 lists and, in fact, those are the artists we've been reading about all year. So it must be true. Except that it's not. And anyone with two ears, a mild interest in music and a little common sense knows it. There's nothing necessarily wrong with any of the albums Rolling Stone, Spin or that latest entry into the music- mag game, Blender, chose to honor. But how could it be that everyone is sweet on the exact same albums? There were tens of thousands of CDs released in 2001, and at least a couple dozen really great ones -- some of them by people like the Court & Spark, Califone, Even Johansen, the Frames, Dakota Suite, the Beauty Shop, Masta Ace and some dude named M.Ward. But most people will never hear word one about them because every major music magazine devotes its space and energy to the same cast of characters. Of the 10 records Rolling Stone ranks as 2001's best, exactly zero were released and distributed by independent labels. Instead, their list includes Radiohead's Amnesiac -- which isn't even the best Radiohead album of the year -- and a Mick Jagger solo album that's bad even by the comically low standard by which Jagger albums are measured. Rolling Stone is an easy target, but its competitors don't fare much better. Blender's top 10 also put up a goose egg on the indie front, while Spin found room for just three indies in their top 20 of 2001. I mention all this not to re-open that increasingly dull "indies vs. majors" can of worms. The point is not whether indie records are better, but rather that most people will never know about most great records because music magazines aren't writing about them. Year-end lists illustrate the point, but the problem exists year-round. Why? The easy answer might be that music critics have become lazy and complacent followers, lacking the strength of their convictions. Used to be the best of the lot were snobby contrarians, championing records no one's heard and assuming any artist the record company pushes as the "next big thing" probably sucks. It was an imperfect system, but it helped give artists without much promotional muscle a chance at cracking into public consciousness. Maybe critics couldn't stop the New Kids on the Block from selling millions of records, but if nothing else, they could try shaming those record buyers into recognizing the error of their ways. But blaming writers for the sorry state of music criticism today is sort of like blaming inmates for the sorry state of the prison system. Good critics still hunt constantly for good music that isn't necessarily thrust into their faces by PR flaks. Just dig around on the Internet for the personal top 10 lists of prominent critics and you'll find gems by folks like the Tyde, Roger Wallace, the Eyeliners, Rockfour and Four Tet. It's just that it's getting tough to find magazines with the space or the incentive to cover many of these acts. Because acts like Rockfour and the Tyde are on labels that can neither afford to advertise in Rolling Stone and Spin, nor hire the appropriate publicists and promotions teams to work up the kind of buzz that sells magazines, few publications cared to print a word about them. But beyond money issues, there's a sense that these magazines have come to trust not the individual opinions of their writers but rather the collective opinions of record companies, publicity firms, MTV, the radio and even other magazines' writers. Personal passion has been quashed by corporate groupthink: How good could this record be if no one else is writing about it? Or, if 6 million people are going to buy this record, it couldn't be all bad. In other words, they do believe the hype. Critics are not completely blameless. With very few publications willing to pay writers a decent wage to write intelligently about interesting music -- and plenty willing to buy snappy, clever fluff about Britney, U2 and Staind - -- we've mostly given in. We've become content to trade in any high- minded ideals about actual arts criticism for a meager living as reactionaries, hedgers, apologists and hype-men. Full disclosure: I'm as guilty as the next hack in this sad debacle. I write for some of these publications and contribute significantly to a successful men's magazine that's not particularly known for its enlightened attitude. And admittedly, I'd rarely forgo a well-paying assignment writing about a No Doubt album in order to cover a lesser-known artist for little pay in a smaller publication. I wouldn't claim to like something that's crap, but I'll gladly collect rent money waxing poetic about why Slipknot stinks. And my position is similar to lots of other critics -- leaving you with an awful lot of stories on No Doubt and Slipknot. And none about the Beauty Shop. Sure, alternative weeklies, smaller magazines and fanzines still publish stories about all music under the sun, but their reach is limited and the quality of their writing might charitably be called hit-and-miss. Besides, since many of these publications, and their writers, take their cues (sometimes not consciously) from major music magazines, this unadulterated hype-mongering has filtered its way down. Intellectual laziness has become commonplace everywhere -- reviews and stories often resemble nicely polished press releases. Meanwhile, any insightful voices in the wilderness tend to get drowned out by the chorus of voices echoing the party line. In the end, the question is this: What's the basic mission of a music magazine (and by extension, a music writer)? Is it to tell readers about the music they like or tell readers what music they should like? Music magazines currently operate mostly under the first model, since it makes the most business sense. With the help of market research, magazines have come to the conclusion (perhaps correctly) that readers don't really like to read about artists they're not familiar with. They also don't like to be told their favorite artists, in fact, suck. Record labels, among a music magazine's largest advertisers, don't like it much either. Thus, the likelihood of seeing a fevered gutting of a commercially successful record in a mainstream music magazine has just about disappeared. Music magazines have apparently given up on trying to be cultural critics or, at the very least, consumer advocates. They've simply accepted their fate as just another arm on the giant hype machine, battling to be first to tell readers about something they'll be seeing next week on MTV. The goals have seemingly narrowed: from wanting to turn readers on to music they otherwise wouldn't hear, to an anxious desire to remain -- in the parlance of hype-dom -- merely "ahead of the curve." And the biggest loser is the reader, kept informed by the endless editorial fellatio on the same 20 artists while a world of great music passes by. - ----------------------------------------------- The deafening buzz Where have all the critics gone? BY DAVID PEISNER The results are in. Combing through the country's major music magazines, it's clear that the best albums of 2001 were made by Bob Dylan, Bjork, Radiohead, Alicia Keys, Macy Gray, Ryan Adams, System of A Down, Jay- Z and the Strokes. Those are the artists who keep popping up on all the Best of 2001 lists and, in fact, those are the artists we've been reading about all year. So it must be true. Except that it's not. And anyone with two ears, a mild interest in music and a little common sense knows it. There's nothing necessarily wrong with any of the albums Rolling Stone, Spin or that latest entry into the music- mag game, Blender, chose to honor. But how could it be that everyone is sweet on the exact same albums? There were tens of thousands of CDs released in 2001, and at least a couple dozen really great ones -- some of them by people like the Court & Spark, Califone, Even Johansen, the Frames, Dakota Suite, the Beauty Shop, Masta Ace and some dude named M.Ward. But most people will never hear word one about them because every major music magazine devotes its space and energy to the same cast of characters. Of the 10 records Rolling Stone ranks as 2001's best, exactly zero were released and distributed by independent labels. Instead, their list includes Radiohead's Amnesiac -- which isn't even the best Radiohead album of the year -- and a Mick Jagger solo album that's bad even by the comically low standard by which Jagger albums are measured. Rolling Stone is an easy target, but its competitors don't fare much better. Blender's top 10 also put up a goose egg on the indie front, while Spin found room for just three indies in their top 20 of 2001. I mention all this not to re-open that increasingly dull "indies vs. majors" can of worms. The point is not whether indie records are better, but rather that most people will never know about most great records because music magazines aren't writing about them. Year-end lists illustrate the point, but the problem exists year-round. Why? The easy answer might be that music critics have become lazy and complacent followers, lacking the strength of their convictions. Used to be the best of the lot were snobby contrarians, championing records no one's heard and assuming any artist the record company pushes as the "next big thing" probably sucks. It was an imperfect system, but it helped give artists without much promotional muscle a chance at cracking into public consciousness. Maybe critics couldn't stop the New Kids on the Block from selling millions of records, but if nothing else, they could try shaming those record buyers into recognizing the error of their ways. But blaming writers for the sorry state of music criticism today is sort of like blaming inmates for the sorry state of the prison system. Good critics still hunt constantly for good music that isn't necessarily thrust into their faces by PR flaks. Just dig around on the Internet for the personal top 10 lists of prominent critics and you'll find gems by folks like the Tyde, Roger Wallace, the Eyeliners, Rockfour and Four Tet. It's just that it's getting tough to find magazines with the space or the incentive to cover many of these acts. Because acts like Rockfour and the Tyde are on labels that can neither afford to advertise in Rolling Stone and Spin, nor hire the appropriate publicists and promotions teams to work up the kind of buzz that sells magazines, few publications cared to print a word about them. But beyond money issues, there's a sense that these magazines have come to trust not the individual opinions of their writers but rather the collective opinions of record companies, publicity firms, MTV, the radio and even other magazines' writers. Personal passion has been quashed by corporate groupthink: How good could this record be if no one else is writing about it? Or, if 6 million people are going to buy this record, it couldn't be all bad. In other words, they do believe the hype. Critics are not completely blameless. With very few publications willing to pay writers a decent wage to write intelligently about interesting music -- and plenty willing to buy snappy, clever fluff about Britney, U2 and Staind - -- we've mostly given in. We've become content to trade in any high- minded ideals about actual arts criticism for a meager living as reactionaries, hedgers, apologists and hype-men. Full disclosure: I'm as guilty as the next hack in this sad debacle. I write for some of these publications and contribute significantly to a successful men's magazine that's not particularly known for its enlightened attitude. And admittedly, I'd rarely forgo a well-paying assignment writing about a No Doubt album in order to cover a lesser-known artist for little pay in a smaller publication. I wouldn't claim to like something that's crap, but I'll gladly collect rent money waxing poetic about why Slipknot stinks. And my position is similar to lots of other critics -- leaving you with an awful lot of stories on No Doubt and Slipknot. And none about the Beauty Shop. Sure, alternative weeklies, smaller magazines and fanzines still publish stories about all music under the sun, but their reach is limited and the quality of their writing might charitably be called hit-and-miss. Besides, since many of these publications, and their writers, take their cues (sometimes not consciously) from major music magazines, this unadulterated hype-mongering has filtered its way down. Intellectual laziness has become commonplace everywhere -- reviews and stories often resemble nicely polished press releases. Meanwhile, any insightful voices in the wilderness tend to get drowned out by the chorus of voices echoing the party line. In the end, the question is this: What's the basic mission of a music magazine (and by extension, a music writer)? Is it to tell readers about the music they like or tell readers what music they should like? Music magazines currently operate mostly under the first model, since it makes the most business sense. With the help of market research, magazines have come to the conclusion (perhaps correctly) that readers don't really like to read about artists they're not familiar with. They also don't like to be told their favorite artists, in fact, suck. Record labels, among a music magazine's largest advertisers, don't like it much either. Thus, the likelihood of seeing a fevered gutting of a commercially successful record in a mainstream music magazine has just about disappeared. Music magazines have apparently given up on trying to be cultural critics or, at the very least, consumer advocates. They've simply accepted their fate as just another arm on the giant hype machine, battling to be first to tell readers about something they'll be seeing next week on MTV. The goals have seemingly narrowed: from wanting to turn readers on to music they otherwise wouldn't hear, to an anxious desire to remain -- in the parlance of hype-dom -- merely "ahead of the curve." And the biggest loser is the reader, kept informed by the endless editorial fellatio on the same 20 artists while a world of great music passes by. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2002 15:23:39 -0500 From: "Larry Tucker" Subject: RE: [loud-fans] Jerkin' the tears |-----Original Message----- |From: Chris Murtland [mailto:chris@studiomoxie.com] |I can live with James Taylor in the universe and don't mind |randomly hearing one of his tunes now and again, although I |don't initiate such a procedure. Of course, John Denver songs |made me cry when I was seven, so obviously I was doomed from |the get-go. First I don't mind hearing Mr. Taylor's stuff, in small doses, but Chris' comment on Denver got me thinking along this revisionist line. Is it possible that one day Denver will be cool like the Carpenters? I khow when I was a teen if a Carpenters song came on It would make me gag. Of course at that time I was heavily under the influence of the likes of Led Zepplin and Deep Purple. Now though, I find many of those same Carpenters songs charming and I can look past the smarminess to see that there were some clever songs there. Oh god! May I one day like Michael Bolton?......nahhh, but I guess with the proper medications anything's possible. - -Larry ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2002 20:44:21 -0000 From: "Ian Runeckles & Angela Bennett" Subject: RE: [loud-fans] Why do people hate James Taylor so much? ana says: > >I've always wondered: why do people hate James Taylor so >much? > > yes, when people instead > shd be reserving their hatred for > steve miller.... Yeah, his later stuff was pants but I always thought SAILOR was a fine west coast psych/blues album... Ian ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2002 20:44:21 -0000 From: "Ian Runeckles & Angela Bennett" Subject: RE: [loud-fans] prog-out in progress Jeff writes of ELP: > However, what I'd forgotten is that when they put their minds > to it, they could actually write a decent song - sometimes > even quite a pretty one. The high-water mark is probably > "Trilogy": a lovely melody that, for once, is actually > *developed* in the subsequent sections (rather than having > the track be extended by blatantly obvious cut-n-paste > methods - amazing how blunt and clumsy some of those edits > are...). "The Endless Enigma" isn't half-bad either. TRILOGY is my favourite of their albums although ELP is also pretty damn good - if you like that sort of thing. Aficionados seem to consider BRAIN SALAD SURGERY the zenith though - can't say I've ever heard it all the way through! I guess it wasn't really their raison d'etre to write a decent song - surely the whole prog thing was to *not* write songs, to escape the shackles of the 3 minute pop song and to expand horizons blah blah blah. Tarkus pretty much takes this to the extreme being over 20 minutes long and is a reasonably successful musical evocation of a concept (aaargh) about a creature that's a cross between an armadillo and a tank - don't you think? :-) > (Except when they did...and produced awful dreck like > "Are You Ready Eddy?" Filler, thy name is short ELP tracks...) Agreed, totally dire - Jeremy Bender anyone? (which actually turns up on the Fanfare for the Common Man "Best of" - along with Love Beach which is contract-filling abysmalia (hey, new word!). Curious note: I read a review of _Selling > England by the Pound_ that mentioned Gabriel's having read a > lot of T.S. Eliot at the time; the critic claimed that > influence was legible in the lyrics to some of the tracks > here, particularly "Dancing with the Moonlit Knight." > Normally, I'd sort of dismiss that kind of remark...but you > know, I knew the Genesis album before I knew T.S. Eliot - and > I remember the first time I read _The Waste Land_ thinking, > "hey - something about this reminds me of Genesis lyrics..." > (Resemblance or influene, of course, does not equal merit or > quality: not even Gabriel at his most ego-ridden would > presume so, I don't > think.) Interestingly this was the first Genesis album (on Charisma at least) where the lyrics weren't provided with the album (at least my copy didn't have it). I'll have to listen to it again but the main line I remember is the "knights of the green shield stamp and shout" which is a dreadful pun on green shield stamps which were given away in the 60s and 70s in the UK with purchases such as petrol - you stuck them in books and when you had a gazillion could take it to a green shield stamp shop to exchange it for a crappy kitchen knife or some such other delightful object. Petrol stations competed with each other by offering double stamps, triple stamps etc etc so that you bought a gallon and came away with armfuls of the damn things. Angela remembers it being her job to stick them in the album - for which she got extra pocket money! Prog til you drog, Ian ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2002 15:58:43 -0500 From: jenny grover Subject: Re: [loud-fans] Halstead and Merritt, or, Notes toward asyntactical deconstruction of inflated authorial ego Well, as weird as the lyrics are at times (what's up with that striped pair of pants?) I never saw MacArthur Park as particularly psychedelic, just metaphoric. I think he's just sitting in the park where he and his girlfriend used to spend time, sitting in the rain feeling sorry for himself because they broke up and he feels like time is passing him by, and he doesn't think he'll ever find anyone he loves more than her, though apparently he's not averse to trying and even expects to have multiple future girlfriends. The park was a place of sweet memories, like a green cake, and now that's all ruined for him. Jen ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2002 16:04:14 EST From: JRT456@aol.com Subject: Re: [loud-fans] Year's best article In a message dated 1/29/02 12:22:33 PM, DOUDIE@aol.com writes: << I thought this was worth the read, and would illicit some interesting discussion... >> What the Lister fails to note is that this article is from the Atlanta alt-weekly Creative Loafing, which recently ran a remarkably similar article about film criticism. In that earlier piece, it was also noted that a major problem is that critics just aren't paid enough. Mourn appropriately. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2002 14:24:29 -0700 From: "Roger Winston" Subject: Re: [loud-fans] Halstead and Merritt, or, Notes towardasyntactical deconstruction of inflated authorial ego Here is my own interpretation of the lyrics to MacArthur's Park. I admit it is colored by my own unique experiences. YMMV. >Spring was never waiting for us, girl Gosh, that weather girl on channel 4 is cute. I bet she wouldn't give me the time of day though. >It ran one step ahead >As we followed in the dance It is very hard to run and dance at the same time. >Between the parted pages and were pressed, >In love's hot, fevered iron The pages of this magazine are sticky. >Like a striped pair of pants Clown school has rejected my application and now I must shop for a new wardrobe. >CHORUS : >MacArthur's Park is melting in the dark I can't quite see what is happening in the park tonight, but it appears that Green Lantern is battling Sinestro... >All the sweet, green icing flowing down... ...and losing. >Someone left the cake out in the rain >I don't think that I can take it >'Cause it took so long to bake it >And I'll never have that recipe again >Oh, no! `Twas brillig, and the slithy toves Did gyre and gimble in the wabe; All mimsy were the borogoves, And the mome raths outgrabe Oh no! >I recall the yellow cotton dress >Foaming like a wave >On the ground around your knees Your clothing defies the laws of physics. >The birds, like tender babies in your hands I'm really hungry. >And the old men playing checkers by the trees It's the simple things in life, really. >CHORUS : > >There will be another song for me >For I will sing it I'm not creatively dried-up yet. >There will be another dream for me >Someone will bring it ORA-00001: unique constraint (MYTH.DREAM_BRINGER) violated >I will drink the wine while it is warm Because wine cools down real fast. >And never let you catch me looking at the sun Always use a pin hole in cardboard. >And after all the loves of my life >After all the loves of my life >You'll still be the one. No else will have me; we're stuck with each other. >I will take my life into my hands and I will use it Jim says some destinies should not be delivered. >I will win the worship in their eyes and I will lose it All I have to do is get a buzzcut, and everyone will love me until it grows back out. >I will have the things that I desire This time they will not repossess my Chevy Cavalier. >And my passion flow like rivers through the sky. My love is like a lawn sprinkler; it creates rainbows. >And after all the loves of my life >After all the loves of my life >I'll be thinking of you >And wondering why. The neighbor's dog is telling me to eat pretzels. Later. --Rog ------------------------------ End of loud-fans-digest V2 #43 ******************************